Le Danse de Oberon is a companion piece to Debussy’s “Le Danse de Puck” in his Preludes, Book I. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Puck wreaks havoc under the auspices of Oberon, husband to Titania, the queen of the fairies. The horn call motive in Debussy’s prelude alludes to Oberon, and my prelude begins with the same call. Despite his royal stature, Oberon’s anger at his wife leads him to seek revenge. The conflict between Oberon and Titania, two powerful mystical beings, intensifies the weather—changing seasons and unsettling the sea. My dance features a flustered nobility, where stately sounds stumble to give way for more comic sonorities. The work pulls from “Le Danse de Puck” in some of its harmonic vocabulary, rhythms, and the horn-call motif; however, Le Danse de Oberon features a more aggressive, earthy style to contrast Puck’s weightless image.

Performances

March 17, 2019 by Allison Moline for the 2019 UMKC Piano Studio Co[mp]llaborationWhite Recital Hall, University of Missouri-Kansas City, KCMO.

March 31, 2019 by Allison Moline for the 2019 UMKC Piano Studio Co[mp]llaborationKansas City Public Library, KCMO.

Andando begins quickly and gradually decelerates through metric modulations in “Que yo quiero llegar tardando” (“For I want to arrive late”). This movement retreats from the busyness of everyday life into the solitude of nature at sundown.

“Mi corazón ya es remanso” (“My heart is already at peace”) opens in stasis. This lyrical movement first traces a modal melody, then it swells passionately to a strong, yearning climax, depicting the faithful tears the poet leaves behind.

“Dar mi alma a cada grano” (“To give my soul to each grain”) acts as a coda to the work. Melodic notes are decorated with extended runs, freely made from past material. The work ends with a recollection of the second movement, ending in peace.

Andando was written for and premiered by Regina Tanujaya at her recital concert, Poems and Pictures.

“This division of energy into actual and potential seems to me to be defective. It prevents the direct comprehension in the mind of energy as being motion and nothing else; it leaves unexplained how a body perfectly at rest can come to move; and further implies the dissipation of energy . . . in a new phase, for, if all the actual energy in the universe were to become potential, all the real and positive motions which constitute life might indefinitely cease.”

- George Iles, The Constancy of Motion, Popular Science Monthly, Volume 10, December 1876

Commissioned by the American Guild of Organists Student Commissioning Project, Wend Your Way is a fantasia on the classic Latter-day Saint hymn tune and text. It progresses from the depths of sorrow for the martyrdom of the early members of the Latter-day Saint church's prophet, Joseph Smith, through the uncertainties of what lie ahead for the Saints, into the confidence and strength found in everlasting hope, and finally to the glorious joy of reaching a land of refuge and sanctuary, serving as a literal narrative and the personal spiritual journey we all strive to make in life.

Imagine If... explores my former clarinet professor Jaren Hinckley's teaching style based on Stanislavski's acting method. The perfomer has written prompts within the part that must be weaved together into one story by the performer. But the main difference from Hinckley's method is that the piece calls for actual acting from the performer...

"And the priest shall go forth out of the camp; and the priest shall look, and, behold, if the plague of leprosy be healed in the leper; [t]hen shall the priest command to take for him that is to be cleansed two birds alive and clean, and cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop[.] And the priest shall command that one of the birds be killed in an earthen vessel over running water[.] As for the living bird, he shall take it, and the cedar wood, and the scarlet, and the hyssop, and shall dip them and the living bird in the blood of the bird that was killed over the running water[.] And he shall sprinkle upon him that is to be cleansed from the leprosy seven times, and shall pronounce him clean, and shall let the living bird loose into the open field." (Leviticus 14:3-7)

"But notwithstanding the law of Moses, they did look forward to the coming of Christ, considering that the law of Moses was a type of his coming, and believing that they must keep those outward performances until the time that he should be revealed unto them." (Alma 25:15)